Laser cut a simple Christmas ornament!

Hello! Before I get started, I should emphasize: this Instructable should be really, really easy, provided you have a laser cutter. Without one of those nifty devices, I would have labored hours to crudely carve this, only to produce something much, much uglier. Only that's not accurate, because I probably wouldn't have made this ornament at all.

I made it at TechShop, because a laser cutter is not something I have at my house.

Step 1 Design your logo

Easy enough, the first step is to design a logo or, better yet (if you already have one) to simply copy and paste it into Adobe Illustrator. My company already has a one conveniently enough, so it was a matter of formatting it to be etched and outlining the ornament. First I removed all color to reduce it to black and white, and then I pasted it into a new document.

I created an outer circle a little over 3.5" to be the vector outline--this is what the laser cutter will actually be cutting out. Inside of that outer boundary, I created a circle of width 7px to highlight the ornament's shape. This was etched into the final product. I then flipped the logo (see picture) and placed it within the circle in a position that looked best to me. Finally, I positioned a small vectored hole toward the top of the ornament, which is where a hook will later attach. Now of course, you could just drill a hole out afterward and skip designing in a hole, but that defeats the whole purpose of using a laser cutter. be sure to center this hole--otherwise your ornament will wind up tilting to the side.

Comments

[Kiteman]

Nice, simple idea, but couldn't you have used a slightly more festive image?

[hvalross]

Totally, but I wanted to make one with my company logo. Agreed this is incredibly simple--I actually made the coasters and made an ornament as an afterthought. Thank you for taking a look!